Any Experience Routing Joint for Laminated Flooring ?

[newrelm]

This question must have come up before, though my search through the archives wasn't fruitful.

I'm installing glueless laminated flooring in my living room today. After laying down 15 rows of planks, I have about a 2 1/2 inch gap to finish the job. The obvious thing to do would be to rip the planks, use 2 1/2 inches of it and throw away the remaining 9 inches. Once I cut the board, of course, the 9 inch off-cut doesn't have the propritary snap-lock edge routed into it.

Being the cheapskate that I am, I can't help wondering whether I could buy the bit to route (or otherwise improvise)that special joint into the off-cut pieces and save myself about $50 in wasted planks. Actually, multiplying bu the number of other rooms I'll be getting to soon, it has the prospet to save $300 in waste.

Has anyone tried this? Any reports on success or failure? Maybe a special router bit I could buy purpose made for this job? Your insights would be appreciated.

[Red Green]

newrelm wrote in news:e0d87e56-563f-4778-a047- [e-mail]:

Not using them on the opposite wall (unless you started on the opposite wall with a full one)? How about the opposite wall in the other rooms? Looked ahead on that?

[newrelm]

Yes, I could use them in other rooms. That's probably the most sensible thing to do. That will lock me in to using this same flooring in those other rooms, but . . . Without any real reason to change, why not

Here I was looking for a technology solution to a common sense problem. Thanks for the common sense advice.

[HeyBub]

You have the same odditity with the short ends. Those, of course, are the starter planks for the next row. In your case, the ripped planks are the starter-row planks for the next room.

Before you use the ripped surplus as the starter row for the next room, make sure the new room doesn't require an exact number of full-width planks, else you'll be ripping another set needlessly.